Scars And Stripes: Assassin’s Creed III

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There are three remarkable things about the new Assassin’s Creed III trailer, although ‘remarkable’ may be too strong a word really, so let’s dial it back to ‘notable’. Thing number one is that, having just read all about Rome II, I couldn’t help but think the opening of this video would make more sense as an advert for Total War of Independence. Secondly, I was surprised to learn that despite not actually being released yet, Assassin’s Creed III was the best adventure game and action game at E3. It was also the best trailer, which makes more sense. The last thing I noted was that some of the single player missions are so big that it’s only possible for consolemen to get them by pre-ordering the game in a giant box, although the PC Digital Deluxe Edition manages to fit them down an internet tube.

How is it only now that I’ve seen the new assassin’s full name. Connor Kenway. Now, that is remarkable.

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I loved AssCreed2 and AssBro but after the ‘More Of The Same + Bombs’ of Revelations I’m finding it very difficult to drum up any interest in this at all. Doesn’t help that the setting just isn’t grabbing me.

I like AC2, but didn’t really like Ass:Bro. It seems like most of the main story line missions were training tutorials demonstrating some feature you already knew how to do from the last game and which, once you learned it, you never used again. It got tedious once you were 3/4 of the way though the game and still getting tutorial missions.

Plus, all the side stuff was overload: upgrading stores (why? You never really need money in the game so it’s pointless), brothel tasks, theives guild tasks, assassin recruitment and management, exploding towers, etc, etc. It seemed like they spent so much time adding useless repetitive side tasks that the main storyline missions ended up (mostly) sucking.

This is exactly the experience I’ve had with the series. The first one was flawed, repetitious, but entertaining because of its novel gameplay for the first few hours. AC2 I loved, because of the huge improvements to the open world system, interesting missions that allowed me to approach them (mostly) how I wanted and an epic story that followed Ezio through childhood to maturity, giving a real sense of thoroughly knowing the character and discovering his (erk) ‘destiny’ alongside him.

AC:B just held my hand the whole way through, limiting missions to ‘follow the waypoint and don’t fuck up’, and too many of the sidequests and other activities felt like filler. The city improvements and assassins missions in particular being a case of ticking boxes for completion’s sake, rather than for the satisfaction of playing them.

I haven’t tried AC:R yet as it sounds like more AC:B in a slightly more interesting setting, but with even more annoying Desmond missions.

I also was hoping for a setting that went further back into the past, like Ancient Greece or Egypt, but having seen how they’ve adapted the War of Independence for AC’s play style, I’m definitely interested again. It’s certainly one of the more ambitious and unlikely eras they could have picked for an open-world, free-running game! The idea of treerunning was probably the first reveal that turned my head.

It all depends on their approach to the missions though. If they manage to alleviate the frustrations of AC:B then I will definitely pick it up at some point.

*coughs* Never one-sided, you say? How was AC2 or ACB not one-sided? (never played ACR, probably never will). Ah well, AssCreed has never been known for its strong moral content… or any content other than its stabby-stabby climby-climby, which doesn’t seem to have changed all that much over the course of 4 games, unfortunately.

Maybe instead of being a tool you should actually say the reasons why you think they are one sided. Otherwise your argument is a complete waste of words.

From what I have seen it’s not going to be one sided. As the Connor said himself, the patriots can fight their own wars, he just wants the templars. But lets wait and see.
And I think most people agree that while no side was evil, the American Revolutionaries were in the right. Well their cause was anyway. There is always bastards on both sides of a war.

Because AC 2 is about Ezio going emo over his old man’s death and going on a killing spree. AC 1 was better in terms of story and gameplay, it’s just that it was too repetitive otherwise it’s easily the best game in the series.

Right. So you seriously think in the case of a British colony wanting it’s independence and then the British going over and trying to stop them from having it, that there is ambiguity on who is on the right and who is on the wrong? And nice deflecting “America has a larger population”.

On a separate note…
At least your not as bad as all those idiots who are whining about this game because you get to kill British people, and saying it will all be about the glorification of America. I mean this is made by Ubisoft Montreal (mainly) which is in Canada right? Who I doubt would want to glorify America. Am I missing something?

EDIT: I should clarify these ‘idiots’ are not here, there all on youtube and other sites.

Well the colonization of the Americas was a massive investment by Britain, both from private ventures and the government. An investment that was only about to start making a profit by the time the war of independence began. As a business venture the British really did have every right to try to see a return on their investment. Hell the reason why Britain has eventually pulled out of any colony was that it was economically unviable, or the eventual discord drove the costs too high.

The ethics of the thing are—shock horror—actually quite complicated. There was a hell of a lot more to it than those mean old Brits taxing and oppressing a young country that yearned to be rich and free; e.g. the Royal Proclamation of 1763 trying to stop them charging west into native lands.

@dsch
I never said who was right. I said who’s cause was right. And in the end my view of who’s cause was right is my opinion and my belief, however I also think most people would tend to agree with me. Please tell me what I am missing? I never denied there might be alternative and less admirable motives on the American side of the war and more logical and understandable motives on the British side. But I couldn’t think of any examples, so I just used the term ‘bastards’. LionPhill has now educated me on a specific example being the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

I have no issue about someone claiming i’m uneducated on the topic. However maybe you should give a few details as to what I have got wrong/misunderstood.

To be honest, I’d agree that the Ezio games were one sided. It was you and your rag tag bunch of allies against the Papacy. The only time overt enemies of the Papal States came up e.g. Sforza, they were your allies. It’s really not like AC1 where you’re killing from two mutually opposed groups.

Indeed. The Dishono(u)red pre-E3 trailer was a hundred times better – more interesting to watch and with superb music written specifically for it (well, words of ‘What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor’ altered to fit the games setting).

I can’t deny that the little ad for “Lost Mayan Ruins” DLC excites the Tomb Raider pleasure centers in my brain more than anything I’ve seen from the new Lara Croft game Crystal Dynamics is working on.

Don’t get me wrong I’d like to see the game come out too and pledged some money myself, but it’s not going to happen this time around is it. They need to have a think after this and do a reboot with more realistic goals.

Anyway there’s a thread for this in the forums. Here is the wrong place.

Why did Adam link to a trailer and then embed a video that is entirely different? It seems misleading to readers of the article when the video you speak of is an easy to miss link and you post an unrelated video.